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Christmas Countdown competition into a state of burning shame.

Ms Gilfedder confessed that she is not a whisky drinker, nor a

sportsperson, and obviously by no means a golfer. The prizes in our

questioning queries included bottles of malt, sports shirts, and

golf-related lambswool scarves. Says this redoubtable reader and woman:

''I cannot help but wonder how your male readers would react if the

prizes were a compilation of, say, luxurious silk lingerie, a few

bottles of expensive perfume (with an informative video of how it was

put together), and a free facial or hair-do.''

I suggest to The Herald that we listen to her suggestions next year;

any year; next week.

Especially as I am interested in silk lingerie, though only if a girl

is in it. The idea of our new editor in silk lingerie is abhorrent, I

may say. There may be a few chaps in the paper who might want to sport

lingerie of a night and, hopefully, at home, though I doubt it. The

notion of most of the fellows in this paper in their underpants, let

alone whispy scanties, is enough to make you fancy some of the women

journos, and that is extreme enough. I am taking that back right now.

My interest in women's underclothes is well-recognised -- I am not

known as The Herald's Pants Correspondent for nothing -- but there is,

well, an end in this. When a very silly chap from a newspaper across the

way reviewed my Sporting Urban Voltaire book (Neil Wilson Publishing,

#7.95, and a damn good read, ideal for Chrissie presents), he libelled

me and this paper by implication. Implied that my book was redolent with

salaciousness. Well it was and it wasn't.

The was bit is that I enjoy seeing pretty girls. The wasn't consisted

of not putting that enjoyment aside.

But it is difficult to put frillies aside, as any young Lothario will

tell you. As any girl or woman will tell you too. I will give any of you

female readers a guarantee that if you have got married in the past

damn-near 20 years, you did so with a splendid dress or costume or

whatever and new frilly knickers and stockings and suspenders and don't

deny it. Because you wanted to feel very, very feminine.

I couldn't tell you -- not being a lassie -- if stockings and the

other underpinnings make you feel more feminine, or perhaps more

vulnerable, which is what I suspect is the attraction of stockings for

both sexes, but I can tell you that girls feel more like girls with

frills and lace than they do with denim jeans and a sloppy joe.

If lassies seem to spend their lives clad in an outfit designed for

Max Wall or Desperate Dan they change somewhat when it comes to a

wedding when they stick on hats, diaphanous dresses, gloves, handbags,

high heels, make-up, and silken scanties, and dammit they know what they

are about. (Mind you a god-daughter of mine was once near-expelled from

her mother's house for attempting, nay insisting for some time, to wear

Doc Martens under her bridesmaid's frock. You can invariably tell the

age of a woman nowadays because every woman under 23 wants to hobble

about in the kind of boots National Service imposed upon youths.

I may say my god-daughter was eventually persuaded into nice little

slippers and danced prettily all night. She looked even prettier being

surlier).

Ms Gilfedder's other suggestions for prizes, parfum and eau de

cologne, seem to me ideal. For a start they will kill the smell of the

Doc Martens. A free facial for lassies will doubtless give the

weemenfolk the sort of relaxation they would wish after a hard day

hitting the menfolk, and a hairdo will reinforce the simple fact that

they have, the lucky cows, hair, which is more than most men do, at

least on their heads. I am in favour of the scented femme fatale. Mind

you this set of prizes will cost a great deal more than the masculine

mince which The Herald offered in its male-ist competition.

For why should not the girls be represented by prizes appropriate? It

has always cost more for a woman than for a man and should ever be thus.

When women take part in sport they always get less. Often less respect

at that. When women take part in the male merry-go-round they hold on

hard to the horses and get flung off the cuddies more easily. When they

compete they have less chance, and less reward. And the rewards are

rewards for men. Why any lassie should want a bottle of whisky, a sports

sweater, or a pair of rough tweed trousers designed to rub the labia off

her, defies this columnist and Ms Gilfedder too.

And here I have thought up prizes for girls. They include Janet Reger

panties and silken stockings and nice pleated skirts and hairdos and

scents and expensive furs and pretty laughs, and nice faces and the

shadow of eyelashes upon the bloom of a cheek. Stephen Leacock would

know what I am talking about here, because he wrote a splendid piece

about exactly this when he wrote of the Twentyfirst-Century Woman, in

the course of which he virtually invented Doc Martens for lassies.

The girls might go on to other prizes as well. Such as Clark Gable,

Tom Cruise, or the Friday columnist in The Herald. Is that all right,

Nancy? Ach, I agree with you. Here's me now admitting it. I'm a Nancy

boy at that.